Sunday, August 26, 2012

Floral Jewelry "Broaches"

Floral jewelry is contemporary and popular in the industry. It's also a great way to practice and improve your hand skills. This is a way floral designers can create a trademark design. I pay particular attention to retail stores such as J. Crew, Anthropology and Nordstroms for observing trends and design inspiration. I've noticed morebroach style jewelry displayed throughout these stores. The classic broach styles are being shown with color trends and upbeat twists.

City College of San Francisco Students made the above broachesfor a project we were involved with recently. These armature structures are made out of aluminum wire, bullion wire, pearls, beads and ribbon. A broach style pin and clasp were wired on all the backs to make them authentic. All they need are floral accents to complete the design. Fresh floral adhesive works great for gluing the materials on.

These are fantastic to have displayed at the sales counter in your flower shop or in the consultation area in your design studio. They can be displayed with and without flowers. Great conversational pieces and keepsakes with your customers and clients. I hope this inspires you to explore floral jewelry and even make your own line.

Floral Designer & Educator

Flowers are the media of choice in Jenny’s kind of “naturalist art”. She loves the idea of putting together elements from nature to create ornate, organic, three-dimensional still-lives, which are both beautifully arranged and adhere to the core principles of design and floral composition. Jenny believes we can save our planet “one person at a time” and as a professional and an educator, she stresses the importance of the best environmental practices, as embodied in these four words: reduce, recycle, reuse and repurpose. See her bio.